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The story was rich and diverse in characters and settings, the action and suspense was spine-tingling and the characters came complete with quirks and secrets. This story differs plot-wise from The Vinyl Detective - Flip Back only in that this book’s band was punk and not folk rock. I enjoyed this latest Vinyl Detective story, I 'Liked it' but-for me-it didn't reach the heights of earliest instalments in the series. The very first chapter lays out the overarching mystery of Valerian, her suicide and the missing child. The Vinyl Detectives’ love of good coffee, good food, and fine wine are developed more throughout this book as are his relationships with Nevada, Tinkler, Clean Head, and Stinky.
As with ‘Written in dead Wax’ the story begins simply with the Vinyl Detective finding a disc (well actually, his cat finds it), a rare disc, and the story begins from there. At first, our protagonists are not keen to take on the case, but a series of events take over and, nudged on by Nevada, The Vinyl Detective takes on the case.At first, I wasn’t sure about the two halves approach, but actually it makes much more sense than to separate the story into two books.
The crime mysteries that the Vinyl Detective becomes embroiled in all have a music connection - and enough twists, turns and red-herrings to keep the reader fascinated. The female characters are always good in this, having hobbies and getting stuff done, they even got to use sledgehammers in this one. In short, he is hired by Helene Hilditch, former member of the short-lived but rather successful Punk band The Blue Tits and Erik Make Loud's new girlfriend, to investigate what she and Erik suspect to be attempts on her life. I had strongly considered taking the off-ramp from The Vinyl Detective saga after book 4, but was a) in the mood for another silly romp, b) intrigued by the mention of a cameo by a character from the Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch, which I follow ardently. How I got to know the London Jazz Collector is instructive and very pertinent to the whole Vinyl Detective thing.
Like clockwork, each chapter begins with a precisely-detailed scene and then plows right into the story. Andrew has also written a couple of books under the title, The Rupert Hood Spy Thrillers, as well as several Dr Who Novels, Novellas and comic books.
I'm not a record collector - but through building and organising my library of physical books, ebooks and audio books over the years I have some sense of the outward nerdiness of the true obsessive collector, I can also appreciate the inner joy that the collector experiences when enjoying or adding to their collections. There are also a set of secondary characters, who were around at the time of Valerian’s suicide, who enter the story and give clues to the whereabouts of the missing child. A run in with some of the band members then almost ends with our hero, and a few other regular characters, being shot down by a masked assailant. What I didn’t reckon on, though, was that it would take a number of years for the books to see the light of day. Her boyfriend, Erik Make Loud, a rock guitarist and local associate of our hero gets The Vinyl Detective to start investigating using a rare first pressing of the Blue Tits first album as an excuse.This time, the Vinyl Detective (VD does not seem like an appropriate abbreviation) and Nevada dive into the UK punk scene on the trail of the ultra-rare debut album by the all-girl punk pioneers the Blue Tits.
With shades of the Sex Pistols (including their run in with Bill Grundy) it is punk's turn for the gentle parody.So begins an all-expenses-paid trip to Trollesko, Sweden for the Detective, Nevada, Tinkler and Agatha to track down a copy of the debut album from demonic metal legends, Storm Dream Troopers.
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